As district prepares for added students, Trenton and the closed Community Charter in dispute

Michael Mancuso/The TimesStudents spill out of the Trenton Community Charter School on West State Street in Trenton, New Jersey at dismissal time around 3pm. The school's charter is in jeopady and may be closing for good.

TRENTON — School district officials are scrambling to procure enough teachers, textbooks and other materials for the 400-plus students the district expects to absorb from the now-closed Trenton Community Charter School.

The district’s state monitor, Mark Cowell, outlined the district’s preparations for the influx during Monday night’s board of education meeting.

As many as 450 students from Trenton Community Charter School (TCCS) are expected to enter the public school system and begin school in September at the Jefferson School, a former elementary school.

In the past few weeks, the district has cleaned the school, made repairs, moved in furniture and interviewed teachers for employment.

But the Trenton school district and the charter school are now playing tug of war with textbooks, furniture and other inventory left inside Trenton Community Charter.

“We’ve kind of made arrangements by mixing and matching to get enough furniture to take care of 450 kids, but I just don’t know if we have enough textbooks and inventory now,” said Cowell. “I don’t want to start school without any books.”

Cowell said an attorney for Trenton Community Charter barred him and other officials from taking inventory and removing property. The dispute has now been handed off to the district’s lawyer, he said.

Greg Johnson, the board attorney for the charter school, said he was approached by Broach and Cowell on Monday.

“The district picked up the student records as requested by the Department of Education, those records were provided,” he said. “The only request I know that was made … was for the charter school to provide furniture from the school and that request was denied because the charter school has to prepare a dissolution plan that includes the disposition of its assets as well as a listing of all of its debts and liabilities.”

Johnson said that if the district wanted to acquire the school’s assets, it should also be required to take responsibility for its debts and liabilities as well.

A spokesman with the Department of Education said the law is on the side of the charter school.

“All of the things that they buy, the school purchased out of per-pupil allocation,” said spokesman Justin Barra. “Technically the school owns everything.”

Cowell has contended that money should follow the students. Now that they’ll be attending public school, the textbooks and other materials they use should come, too.

Not so, Barra said.

“The bottom line is the school owns the things they purchased, the furniture, the textbooks,” he said. “From our point of view we hope the district and school can work together to come to an agreement on this.”

The Department of Education declined to renew TCCS’s charter in June, effectively shuttering the 14-year-old school, which served roughly 540 students in grades K-8.

The school was denied a stay by the New Jersey Supreme Court last week which would have allowed it to remain open and to receive state funding. An appeal of the Department of Education’s decision not to renew the state’s charter is still waiting to be heard.

The school remains closed in the meantime, and with the first day of school scheduled for Sept. 8, time is ticking.

Another 100 students are expected from Capital Preparatory Charter High School. The city school surrendered its charter last year amid an investigation into financial mismanagement.

Trenton superintendent Raymond Broach said he hopes more student information can be clarified at an open house tomorrow for TCCS parents who will be sending kids to Jefferson this September. The event is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Jefferson School.